If you think the notion of coopetition is relegated to tech firms that compete as well as cooperate, meet Formula One racing. This is a realm where one top competitor, McLaren, also supplies key high-tech components to its racing rivals but then does its best to apply that technology beyond racing itself.

When new tech innovations come online, the company must tread a fine line between keeping core intellectual property (IP) that can help its cars win, securely in-house, but disseminating other IP to customers that also happen to be competitors in a hyper-competitive field. “We supply the engine control system across the Formula One teams,” said Stuart Birrell, McLaren CIO. The company also supplies the Engine Control Units (ECUs) to Nascar and some of the engine systems for Indy cars. But after the novelty wears off, it really wants to find as many uses for that cool new tech…